How to Learn a Language

I have yet to meet a person that didn’t express an interest in learning a foreign language. It doesn’t matter the reasons, people always want to learn a new language. But, it’s actually pretty rare to find people who are actually taking the time to learn a new language. But, there are plenty of people all around who are learning a new language and they’re the ones learning English as their second language. It’s possible. Whatever age science there is, the fact of the matter is that my parents were native Spanish speakers and learned English later in life when they came to America. They speak English so well now that besides the slight accent, it can be difficult to tell that they weren’t born here.

But full immersion isn’t something that’s easy to attain. Not everyone can afford the luxury of being able to move to their country of choice and learn the language like that. I myself learned Japanese by going to Rutgers University. You might think that that’s cheating, but there’s actually a method to learning a language that the university helps you achieve. Here are some tips on how to learn a language without an institution:

Disclaimer**** A lot of this advice is for a language that uses characters that aren’t roman. Japanese uses three writing systems that are different from english entirely. Thus there are Japanese specific things that apply to languages like Korean, but not necessarily spanish. I’ll get to those.

Learning a Language without a class is HARD: I tried to self study Japanese for years before going to school. But the lack of structure, the lack of good advice, and the large number of really bad books out there make it impossibly hard to find clearly defined fundamentals to begin learning a language with. Luckily, all is not lost. Odds are there is a very good beginner’s textbook available that they use in universities. For Japanese classes it’s Genki 1 and 2. These books provide a structure that those “learn Japanese in 5 days” books don’t provide. They also usually have audio CDs which are invaluable for improving listening ability. But I will say it now, your time and money are probably better taking some time out of your schedule and going to a class. Why continuously pay for stuff that doesn’t work (like rosetta stone) and instead consider the cost of a 101 class at your nearest community college.

Find a buddy or someone who can correct your pronunciation: Even though my speaking of Japanese isn’t amazing, I am constantly told my pronunciation is very good. Japanese has sounds that DO NOT EXIST in English. This didn’t make sense to me for the entirety of my self-study because none of the crappy books mentioned it. That’s a pretty big thing to not know about. Luckily, my Japanese 101 teacher made sure to drill in those sounds that don’t exist in English so we wouldn’t walk into another classroom with poor pronunciation (there were still people who did though).

Don’t spend too much on books: There are only a few essential things a language learner needs. Basic textbooks (beginner, intermediate, possibly advanced), a good dictionary* and a grammar dictionary.

*Dictionaries are a dime a dozen, and it can be difficult to find a good one. But with Japanese specifically, it’s easy to find a bunch of dictionaries that use roman characters for Japanese words and not Japanese hiragana and katakana. This can lead to bad habits. It’s better to push yourself to read in Japanese than to read it in roman characters, as it’s going to build up reading miles.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew: This is a tough one. If you go to a foreign country and use full immersion, it’s adapt or die. Using “full immersion” methods drastically reduces your ability to consume content in a native setting. For example, switching to a bunch of Japanese TV you don’t understand while also trying to live in American society isn’t very easy. Using all the sites you normally use in English, suddenly in Japanese will lead to using muscle memory and not actually learning the words. Overall, full immersion is a great idea in some senses (like listening to music in that language), but it’s also very difficult. To add to this, once you learn some basics don’t try and read that language’s literature. It’ll be too hard. Pick up kids books or translated versions of books you’ve already read. They’ll be much easier and your brain will thank you for not putting it through such hardships.

Be deliberate in hand-writing (also hand write!): Remember how we learned how to write as kids? Very slowly, very deliberately and then once we mastered the alphabet we could speed through words and sentences? Well the same applies to learning how to write in a different language. Slowing down and paying attention to teach stroke is essential to building up.

Learn grammar, practice frequently: I’ve heard arguments against learning grammar before. You didn’t learn it as a kid after all, you picked it up by speaking. But don’t forget that kids have much more room for error than adults. Accidentally insulting someone isn’t cute and can cost you dearly! Also grammar fundamentals are essential for sentence structure, so it’s best to give it a shot.

Read out loud: Once again, going back to when we were kids, we learned to read well by also reading out loud. Doing it with your language will improve your confidence speaking too! If you feel self-conscious about it, don’t forget that people can’t tell how bad you speak! I oftentimes have people striking up conversation because they find what I’m doing interesting. If it’s for the sake of studying and knowledge, nobody seems to care that you’re talking out loud and even find it interesting. Who knows, you might even meet your language buddy like that?

Remember that it takes time: Three years of schooling was all I needed to be able to read the content that I dreamed of when I started self studying many years ago. Even now I still have trouble reading advanced content and need to dedicated time studying. But that isn’t a bad thing, it just means it’s like any other passion, something you don’t give up on.

My final tip is, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Reviewing periodically is the key to making sure you don’t forget anything. Anki is pretty useful for that, but eventually my anki deck was so big it would take an hour to finish on some days. Whatever method works for you, just remember to take a look every now and again or you’ll be out of it in no time.